Remembering my Uncle Ray

I just arrived home from my Uncle Ray’s funeral. It was a nice service; the reverend said all the right things, familiar faces of seldom seen relations provided some comfort for the grieving; the skies were blameless and blue.

During his eulogy, the minister made note of the ways in which my uncle’s life had touched the lives of those around him, of the “seeds” he had planted during his 80 years on this earth. At one point the reverend asked if anyone in the congregation would like to comment aloud, to recall some contribution my uncle had made in his or her life.

A few folks did; a neighbor, a young woman, one of my uncle’s coworkers from his days at Steelcase. I sat there in silence, wishing I had the courage to stand up in front of such a large gathering and tell everyone just how much my Uncle Ray meant to me, how big a part he played in making me, for better or worse, the man I am today.

But I just sat there, afraid if I spoke up I’d end up breaking down and looking like a big, fat crybaby in front of all those people. Were I braver, this is what I would have said:

My Uncle Ray was my first hero. He was a strapping man, tall, handsome as Elvis with a singing voice to match. He played guitar with a Johnny Cash-like authority.

I can remember the first time I heard him play and sing, in my parents’ kitchen. I was seven, maybe eight at the time and had never heard real, live music before. I was hooked from the first C chord; all I wanted was to be like Uncle Ray.

Being the man he was, he took me under his wing, taught me how to play E, A and B, taught me to count to four and keep passable time. It would be easy to say the “seed” he planted in me was music. But music was just the tip of a very, very large iceberg. 

All the really important lessons I learned just from being around the man, from my too-infrequent moments spent walking in his shadow. He taught me a man can be strong as an oak and gentle as the beating of a swallow’s wing; in fact, that’s the only way a man can ever truly be strong.

He taught me that while life isn’t always fair, a good man does what he can to make it as fair as it can be. My uncle showed me how to be a father, a husband, a man.

His love for his wife, my Aunt Myrtle, for his children, Dawn, Arnold and Ray, and for his God was a rock, unassailable, immutable as the earth itself. I have never known a man more comfortable in his own skin than was my Uncle Ray.

Too often in my own life I have fallen short of the example he set, but because of him, even with all my flaws, I have done my best. I will never be the man he was; hell, I don’t know anyone who could be. But I’m better, far better than I might have been, just for having known him.

The Scriptures tell us there is no perfect man, that we all fall far short of grace. I suppose that’s true. I know my uncle would say it is.

But, for my money, at least, my Uncle Ray came pretty close.

That’s what I would have said, if I’d had the guts to stand up in front of that crowd.

mtaylor@staffordgroup.com / (616) 548-8273